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Currently Reading: Two books

So at the moment I’m reading two books. With 2+ hours of commute time each day I must have something to keep me occupied.

So the first book is titled “Data and Goliath: ” by Bruce Schneier, he’s a security expert and cryptographer. I had to get it after they discussed it on AT&T ThreatTraq.

The book is a good read on privacy and how it’s being violated by the very technology we love. Just in the first couple chapters I’ve highlighted a whole bunch of stuff.

For example – I turn OFF location services on my phones. Fuck the NSA if they want to track me. Really. But the NSA deserves more derision for monitoring call meta data, emails, etc.

The other book is titled “The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires” by Tim Wu. Touched on all sorts of communication disruptions. For example I was fascinated to learn that when the Bell System was in in it’s infancy the lead investor attempted to sell all the patents to Western Union for the paltry sum of $100,000. The CEO of Western Union scoffed at the idea. But WU turned around a year or so later – adopted the Edison microphone and had close to 60,000 phones out there. Bell of course filed suit against WU – talk about a David vs. Goliath moment – tiny Bell System versus WU. But they won and history saved the WU attempt to make it so phone service would just be used to enhance telegram service.

It’s interesting – the more books I read in this genre, the Amazon recommendations get more pointed. It’s fascinating stuff to read.